There does seem to be a fashion in modern gardening for 'raised beds' and, in the long term, although it makes a lot of hard work initially, cultivating the actual soil will turn out best - if it's not absolutely beyond recall, that is.

However, if you don't get any luck with your request, cast off tractor tyres make a cheap and long lasting alternative. Arranged in fours, sixes, eights etc., they're deeper than scaffold boards and, in a group of four, for example, arranged in a square, you have the tyres themselves PLUS the star shaped space in the middle that will accommodate something small like mint or parsley which won't be able to spread out of control.

Tyre depots have to pay to get their old ones taken away (so they'll be grateful for you to take them off their hands) and the tyres themselves will last for years and years. The only preparation I'd recommend to maximise the space would be to saw round the walls, leaving about 3 inches, and drop the offcut into the bottom to get rid of it. Any old panel saw will do the job and it won't take long.

Although I'm not short of space, I use a couple for seed beds and small salad crops on a piece of rubbish soil I couldn't use for anything else. I laid several layers of cardboard (collapsed boxes) down before placing the tyres and that made sure none of the weeds underneath came through._________________A novice gardener on newly cultivated, stoney ground.

take a drive around some unfinished estate near you and there'll be loads of boards lying around go in and ask the security guard or owner these boards are wet or warped and are unsafe for use on a scaffold.

I resentally got old scaffolding boards in North Dublin city for €2 a board from a place that rents scaffolding. Cant complain with that. I can PM you the number if you are interested, I know they have loads of them.

Hi Jay
I was looking at the older posts on this forum for information about scaffolding planks...It's funny how things have changed over the last 6 years..We have posts saying that planks are hard to find and when you do find them they will cost 10-15 euro each! How times have changes...now the building has stopped there are mountains of planks available t less than 3 euro...2 euro according to Sunny.

Try on http://donedeal.ie type 'scaffolding planks' into the search bar and lots come up. You could get a pack of 70 delivered for 140 euro...sell them on to your friends!

Tyres are sometimes a bit of an issue because of leeching of chemicals, but then so are old railway sleepers with the creosote..both have been used to build houses though!

If you want a few small ones the fencing panels can be effective...they are treated for long life and smooth too so less splinters....One of my favourite raised beds was made from old books...the slugs seemed to like the pages too !_________________if you are interested in raised vegetable beds and veggie growing I have a new website - raisedbeds.net We're busy on social networking too and have over 12,000 members in the group.

Would you mind PM the number of the company selling the Scaffolding Boards for €2 as I am being charged a fiver for each board.

Thank you

Sparkles

Sunny wrote:

I resentally got old scaffolding boards in North Dublin city for €2 a board from a place that rents scaffolding. Cant complain with that. I can PM you the number if you are interested, I know they have loads of them.

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